“Blockchain is a Natural Technology for Banks” - Yahoo Co-Founder Jerry Yang
Jerry Yang, Co-Founder of Yahoo!, has revealed that he believes blockchain holds significant importance if applied to traditional banking and finance.
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Yahoo! Co-Founder and experienced entrepreneur, Jerry Yang, has announced that he believes blockchain has some serious potential when it comes to the world of banking and finance.
Giving his thoughts on a panel at the Nikkei Innovation Asia Forum, titled "Rising Tides of Innovation in Asia" taking place in Japan, Yang explained how the adoption of blockchain was at a "critical juncture". First reported by Finews Asia, Yang went on to explain that:
"...as the hype surrounding blockchain and cryptocurrencies is falling away, and while it remains to be seen if it survives this post-hype phase, blockchain technology has important applications to banking and...
3 key post ICO success factors for entrepreneurs
According to a recent Boston College study, less than 50% of ICOs are still operational after the first four months following their token sale. People are so focused on the fundraising side of the phenomenon that they forget to address the most essential matter: what are the key success factors post-ICO? This question should be crucial for every investor or entrepreneur who intends to devote coins & time to a project. Here are our 3 tips to deliver a product or a service successfully post-ICO.
Creating Favorable Conditions for Delivery
Poor execution or none whatsoever is the major risk entrepreneurs face post-ICO. How can they deliver their project on time and as intended? The answer is usually a mix between the state of progress and the level of trust you place in your team.
At the fundraising stage, the project should already have proven its feasibility with the main features tested, while not being so advanced that the product is still able to spark valuable feedback from investors and potential consumers. Additionally, the vision and skills of the core team must be strong enough to guide the whole group into accomplishing and overcoming any hardships that may occur during the execution phase. Human resource stability at the C-level is also another crucial factor.
At Blockchain.io, we have the expertise of the team behind Paymium - the first EUR/BTC exchange marketplace in Europe – to lead us. They have already delivered an alpha version of Blockchain.io’s platform and started taking input from...
Being a Woman Entrepreneur In China's Get-Rich-Quick Crypto Culture
Sa Wang has co-founded several successful companies in the tech and blockchain space, first at popular Chinese self-service kiosk startup Dora, and now at top 50 crypto project and blockchain protocol IOST.
We hear a lot about women (or the lack thereof) in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space.
Confirming what many of us already suspected, CoinDesk's Q2 2018 State of the Blockchain Report found that only 4 percent of crypto investors are women. In tandem, reporters regularly call the "blockchain bros" on the carpet for elbowing women out of yet another lucrative emerging industry.
But this has been a predominantly West-centric conversation, casting the spotlight on gender inequality and underrepresentation at Western crypto companies, Western blockchain conferences, and Western meetups.
Thus far, news articles, Twitter threads, and Medium posts have largely neglected the diversity of female experiences in other parts of the world, such as China, South Korea and Japan, where the crypto space is equally — if not more — dynamic and growing.
Take China, for instance. Despite banning ICOs and bringing bitcoin trading to a virtual standstill, in 2017, China was responsible for over half of the world's blockchain-related patent applications — with the U.S. coming in a distant second. The top three cryptocurrencies by market cap launched in 2018 — Zilliqa, Ontology, and IOST — are all Chinese.
With such a strong Asian presence in the blockchain world, why do we rarely hear about Asian women in crypto? What can the rest of the world learn from our experiences?
Chinese women in crypto
In order to understand what it's like to be a Chinese woman in crypto, first you must understand the Chinese crypto space itself.
Despite China's ban on crypto trading, there is a ravenous appetite for crypto wealth — traders have simply started placing their bets in Japan, Hong Kong, and South Korea. The regulatory crackdowns have done little to stifle the hundreds of scam crypto projects in China (many of them deployed overseas), while newly minted bitcoin millionaires — mostly male with no education or merits necessary — abound.
In contrast to the West, where conversations are slowly evolving towards a more nuanced discussion of the merits of blockchain technology and institutional adoption, Chinese crypto enthusiasts largely maintain a single-minded speculative focus: Will this coin be listed on a Korean exchange soon? What is its market cap? Should I buy? Should I sell?
This get-rich-quick mentality makes it very difficult for serious blockchain advocates — especially females, who already have to fight for a voice — to cut through the noise and evangelize a longer-term (and much less sexy) message.
As Carylyne Chan of CoinMarketCap writes in her fascinating and detailed account of Chinese crypto culture:
"Scam cases… have engendered many tragedies, and created a more insidious impact: For those who truly believe in the blockchain, such scams are smearing the blockchain technology...
Google Co-Founder Billionaire Sergey Brin is an Ethereum Miner
How cool is THAT! hmmmm whats he really up too?
Sergey Brin, President of Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc., appeared on the panel on emerging technologies at the ongoing Blockchain Summit in Morroco.
At his last-minute surprise appearance at the summit, Brin revealed that he is mining Ethereum with his 10-year old son. He also stated that the concept of zero-knowledge proofs is “really mind-boggling”.
Zero-knowledge proof is a cryptography principle which enables to prove something without actually revealing the knowledge. This technology is utilized by cryptocurrencies such as ZCash to enable privacy features where users can conceal the transaction information while still securing the network on a public ledger.
The panel also consisted of Elizabeth Stark, co-founder and CEO of Lightning Labs, and Neha Narula, director of the Digital Currency Initiative at MIT Media Lab. Elizabeth Stark spoke about the lightning network and security of centralized exchanges.
“Lightning enables people to transact at a high volume using the...